“No, ma’am. I came straight to you. I thought… well, that you should know.”

I took a deep breath, trying to force my thoughts into some semblance of order. “Victor, thank you for your honesty. Would you mind if I kept the glass to have it checked?”

“I already took care of that,” he replied, pulling a sealed plastic evidence bag from his pocket. Inside was my juice glass. “I was going to suggest the same. If you want to have it tested, well, the proof is right here.”

I took the bag with trembling hands. “I don’t know how to thank you.”

“You don’t have to, Mrs. Helen. Just be careful. People who do these kinds of things are dangerous.”

After one last anxious glance, Victor turned and headed back inside. I remained in the car for several long minutes, clutching the bag with the glass inside it, feeling as though the entire world had caved in on me. Tears slid down my cheeks—not of sorrow, but of a cold, crystalline fury I’d never experienced before. It was the kind of anger that freezes your veins and sharpens your thoughts into something razor-precise.

I wiped my face, drew a steady breath, and reached for my phone. Nora picked up after the second ring.

“You were right,” I said—nothing more.

The silence that followed spoke for her. She had warned me for months about Rachel and Derek’s worsening financial situation, about how suddenly affectionate they’d become after the hotel sale. I hadn’t wanted to believe her. I had chosen, foolishly, to think my daughter was simply returning to me.

“How much time do we have?” Nora finally asked, her tone clipped and professional.

“Not long,” I answered. “They’ll make another attempt.”

“What do you want to do, Helen?”

I stared at the glass sealed in the plastic evidence bag, picturing my daughter’s hands—the same ones I used to hold to steady her as she learned to walk—stirring something into my drink. “I want them to pay,” I said, my voice steady as steel. “But not with prison. That’s too easy. Too public. I want them to feel every ounce of the desperation they tried to inflict on me.”

The next morning, I took the glass—still sealed—to a private lab, the sort of discreet establishment that keeps its mouth shut when you lay down a stack of crisp bills along with your sample.

“I need a full analysis. Today. No questions,” I told the technician.

Continue reading…

Continue READING